The Supreme Court unanimously struck down the federal ban on gun possession by marijuana users, finding the law lacks adequate historical grounding under the Bruen test.
The Supreme Court struck down 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(3), the federal statute barring habitual marijuana users from possessing firearms, in a unanimous decision issued June 18, 2026 [1]. Justice Neil Gorsuch authored the opinion, applying the historical-tradition test the Court established in *New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen* [1]. The Court held that the government failed to identify a sufficient historical analogue for the modern prohibition [1].
The case, *United States v. Hemani*, was decided by the full Court without a single dissent [1]. The government had pointed to historical "habitual drunkard" disarmament laws as the closest analogue to the current statute [1]. The Court rejected that argument, finding that those laws "differ dramatically" from Section 922(g)(3) in scope and operation [1]. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson joined the majority in full [1].
The ruling carries immediate and far-reaching procedural consequences. Section 922(g)(3) has been one of the more frequently charged provisions of the federal firearms code, and the decision calls into question thousands of pending and final prosecutions premised on the statute [1]. The Department of Justice will need to assess which convictions and pending charges are now untenable and how to respond in those dockets [1]. Beyond marijuana, the decision places the entire drug-user firearm prohibition framework under pressure, because the Court's reasoning does not appear to be limited to cannabis specifically but turns on the absence of a founding-era tradition of categorical disarmament for controlled-substance users [2].
The broader significance lies in what the ruling signals about the Bruen test's reach. A unanimous court, including justices across the ideological spectrum, concluded that a cornerstone provision of modern federal gun-control law lacks constitutionally adequate historical grounding [2]. That consensus forecloses the argument that Bruen's historical methodology produces only narrow or contestable results. Congress now faces pressure to either identify new historical support for a revised statute or legislate a replacement framework that can survive the test [2].
The immediate next steps fall to federal district courts managing Section 922(g)(3) cases, to DOJ litigators seeking guidance from Main Justice, and to defense counsel filing motions to dismiss or vacate across affected jurisdictions. Congressional committees with oversight of firearms law are expected to examine whether any legislative fix is viable [2].